Read below about the latest furniture recalls and how you can seek compensation by working with our defective product lawyers, who can help you with your furniture tip-over lawsuit. While no amount of money can make up for an injury or the loss of your loved one, if you choose to pursue a Dresser Tip-Off Lawsuit, you could (i) receive monetary compensation and (ii) send a message to furniture manufacturers that their poor design and manufacturing practices must change.
When a situation is caused by the negligent actions of a landlord, intentional or otherwise, you may be entitled to compensation by filing a personal injury lawsuit. If your child suffered injuries because of a piece of defectively designed furniture, the best way to find out what legal options are available to you and your family is to request a free consultation (which can be done over the phone or via e-mail) with a product liability attorney in your area.
While incidents of tipping furniture really do fall within the purview of product liability laws, there are things consumers can do to avoid these types of accidents in the first place. Injuries caused by furniture topovers fall generally within product liability laws. Items such as tables, trunks, filing cabinets, dressers, bookshelves and racking units, bookshelves, and cabinets are a few examples of pieces of furniture that have injured or killed children and adults as a result of a furniture tip-over.
Curren Kollas was one of the two children killed by one specific piece of furniture — a MALM dresser by Ikea, which has been responsible for an estimated seven million deaths across the country. Since 1989, Ikea dressers have killed eight children younger than three, seven of those eight deaths occurring since the Malm’s chest was released in 2002. In 2016, three children died from asphyxiation due to asphyxiation due to the weight of the dresser, leading to a lawsuit by families of three children and prompting IKEA to recall 8 million Malm dressers.
At least eight children died, and three dozen others were injured from furniture tip-over accidents related to this specific IKEA recall. Last year, on June 28, 2016, IKEA issued a recall that affected 29 million dressers’ chests, which could tip easily and trap children and young children under them. Killed Help has helped prompt Ikea on Wednesday to release a warning that its dressers and chests are unsafe for children unless they are secured against the wall. The Dudeks, of Buena Park, Calif., bought the dressers in 2008 and said in the suit they were never notified about Ikea recalls.
In September 2020, the two families filed a lawsuit against trucking companies for their loss of life. According to attorney Michael Carr, who represents the family of a child killed in an accident with an underpass, it is unusual for families to file lawsuits against manufacturers following a tip-over accident. In May, Jackie, his mother, also filed suit against Ikea, alleging negligence on Ikea’s part in failing to include warnings about tip-overs and instructions for preventing them.
Jackie Collas believes that her son, Kurren, had crawled into a drawer in the overturned dresser, which caused it to tip on top of him. Her little boy was only 30 pounds below the testing threshold when their Ikea dresser fell onto him. At the time, her baby was the ninth known to die under an IKEA dresser that had been tipping, data collected by the federal government shows, and one of more than 450 children killed in tipped furniture, appliances, or TVs since 2000. Example of defective product wrongful death lawsuit A Sarasota, Florida, mother filed a wrongful death suit against Ikea following her infant’s death by a falling dresser that the Sarasota woman purchased from a Hillsborough County store.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission produced this video that demonstrates why parents should anchor large pieces of furniture, TVs, and appliances to prevent a child’s curiosity from seriously harming or killing him. According to the CPSC, when a TV, for instance, falls off of a medium-sized dresser, the force could be thousands of pounds. When a child opens the drawers, they shift the center of gravity, allowing furniture to tip even when no one is climbing over them.
CR believes that the most effective way to prevent tipping is by anchoring dressers to walls. Existing furniture can be secured using cheap, non-tip braces. A Sarasota man is now challenging even the voluntary stability tests used by the furniture industry, which are meant to ensure that a dresser does not tip when a 50-pound weight, intended to mimic a climbing toddler pulling, is suspended over the open drawer. Based on our inquiry, the CR is calling for the tip-over testing weight on dressers to be increased to 60 pounds, up from 50 pounds, and that dressers that are 30 inches tall and shorter should also be included in the voluntary standard used by the industry, as these also may tip over.
The claims allege that Ikea should have been aware of the threat of tip-overs and made products safer. Ikea is paying $46 million to the parents of a 2-year-old crushed to death by the Malm dresser, a furniture item linked with multiple deaths of children due to accidental tip-overs, according to a mediation-court settlement. In 2020, a furniture tip-over class-action lawsuit was filed against Ikea U.S. Retail Ltd. and Ikea North America Services LLC on behalf of consumers who purchased IKEA dressers and chests implicated in tip-over incidents. Jackie Collas, the subject of a previous year’s Inquirer story about the growing threat of furniture and TV tip-overs, said IKEA failed to warn about the dangers or to offer adequate safety features.
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